Breakfast?

A change on the menu of Study Skills!

It is Lent after all. So what are you skipping out on for what purpose? Or are you intentionally doing something different? Why make the change? In lockdown, or any season, we need changes. Scheduling the same old same old everyday isn't doing me any good so I thought to change this style of blog for a while. Study skills can be depressing rather than enervating- even if necessary.

So what do you do in the morning?

It actually does have some relevance for studying. Managing time is a study skill that has far reaching repercussions for life skills. Since we are thinking of beginning the day, and this blog is meant to be pertinent to theological studies too, I thought we could take a look at breakfast in the Bible. Break-fast. Logical: we take a break from sleeping and we start eating. A fast is doing without food in this instance. Isn't English strange! Going fast or going on a fast and keeping fast and loose with things? Other languages have quirks too. I know what 'breakfast' is in Modern Greek πρωινό -(proino in transliteration - Yes that's a study skill in formatting words foreign to English: we italicise them). Maybe it relates to (πριν iνα) prin na = 'before doing something'.

So 'Have you had your Weetabix?' In English that is a brand of breakfast cereal and its advert on TV used that question. it showed someone doing his job rather energised -because he'd had his Weetabix that morning. Some say Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It start to energise us.

Elijah must have felt hyper-energised by the breakfast provided by the angel. Do you recall the biblical story (1 Kings 19)? Elijah had had the day of his life; he'd defeated Baal, the god of thunder -and rain and therefore fertility, who had taken over from YHWH -the God of the Israelites. On Mount Carmel, he'd waited all day to show them God's power. He made fun of their antics in trying to get Baal to send fire on their sacrifices. Then to make sure he wasn't cheating, he had them pour buckets and buckets of water over his sacrifice on the altar he'd built. Fire fell. Ahab the king who'd 'converted' to Baal thanks to his Phoenician wife Jezebel must have been dumbfounded. 'The LORD, the LORD, He is God' cried all the onlookers. Not only fire fell. Rain fell after the slaughter of the prophets - all thanks to persistent faith filled prayer again. But then having ran all the way down the mountain across the vale of Jezreel, Elijah heard the threats against him from Jezebel. Exhausted, now fearful, then depressed, Elijah kept running! At last as far south as Beersheba (nearly 200 km!!!), he lay down and slept.

Suddenly an angel touched him and gave him breakfast! What was in that breakfast. A cake of bread and jar of water was there. I guess Weetabix might be envious and want the recipe; what sort of bread was it? A second sleep and a second breakfast and Elijah was so strengthened he managed 420 km in another forty days until he reached Mount Horeb to meet God. If Horeb and Sinai is Mount Moussa -that is 620km in total at least! Across desert and mountains, without much available sustenance, he must have had some determination but God's provision was sufficient! Then he had to get back and all the way to Damascus in Syria to fulfil God's calling (2 other things to do too): possibly another 700 km -walking! No more angelic breakfasts are noted but he fulfilled God's commissions. Yes, forty days might be symbolic but is often significant in the Scriptures.

If we are determined to meet up with God in our mornings, even before breakfast, what would His provision be for the rest of the day? Sometimes we need rest and food in our Academic studies' journey. Don't skip out on God! It might feel like dozens of marathons but the One who calls, is able to get you through them!